8. Jade
On Monday,I was sitting in class with Cora, waiting for the teacher to come in. She wasn’t in a chatty mood, which was how she was when she was decaffeinated. Her roommate was a partier, waking her up at all hours, so some mornings she had to rush out of the house without being able to eat breakfast or grab a drink. I slid my partially drunk coffee onto her desk.
“Drink, hun. You need it more than me.”
She sighed and gave me a thankful smile before picking up the cup and taking a large swig. She hummed in contentment. “You’re an angel, babe.”
I chuckled. My phone dinged from my backpack, and I pulled it out. There was a text from an unknown number.
Unknown
You look exquisite today.
I immediately looked up, searching around the room for anyone who seemed suspicious, but of course, there was nothing amiss. I mean, what did I expect? For a guy with a black hoodie to be sitting in the corner with the hood drawn up and a cell phone in his hand. My phone vibrated in my hand again, and I saw I had another message.
Unknown
I don’t see your protectors hanging around. Where are they now?
It had to be someone who knew me because they had to be talking about my stepbrother and his teammates. Noah’s protection came with Oli, Ryder, and Finn’s help. Thinking of the recent events made Noah stand out in my mind. Noah was starting to make me yearn for him, and I didn”t know if it was intentional on his part. There was a subtlety to his actions. Like the way he touched me when he was teaching me how to skate. But then there were times when things were more blatant. Like how we”d kissed again, we could have gone further than that, but to my confusion, Noah stopped it. There was this building tension between us, but now I was left wondering if his being into me was just my imagination. It was a hard thing to ponder because our parents would freak the fuck out.
While my mom liked Noah just fine, he was the type of guy she warned me to stay away from—emotionally unavailable, an athlete, and a complete player. So, I spent a lot of effort stuffing down all the feelings I had for him down and so much more. My juvenile crush on my older, much cooler, hockey-playing stepbrother wasn’t appropriate. Then there was my ex who had skewed my opinion about any future relationships I might have. The way I looked at myself. The need to be reckless and spiral.
I had tucked it all away and tried to continue the path I had been on before all that shit. I wanted to be normal Jade again, but the hardest thing about that was I hadn’t been normal Jade since I was fifteen. I didn’t know that girl anymore. I had my innocence torn away from me, and I had no one to help me re-orient myself. Moving away in literally the dead of night made sure I lost all my friends. When I moved here in high school, Cora was really the only friend I made. I knew people and I could talk and be social, but none of them got my trust. It was a fragile gift that I gave to few people, and despite my best efforts, Noah had squirmed his way under my skin and made me feel like I could trust him.
There was also the biggest hurdle I was facing. I was starting to have serious feelings about my stepbrother. Thankfully, Oli was becoming a great friend. It was easy to be around him and feel better. Noah, on the other hand, made butterflies erupt in my belly, and I wanted to smile, thinking about the times he was so damn uncharacteristically sweet. The cocky, stubborn, protective asshole was just another coping mechanism, and I was loving his sweet side the most.
“Hey, Jade. You okay?” Cora asked, breaking me out of my mental musing.
“Um, oh yeah. I just got this random text from an unknown number. It’s not a big deal. Probably just some weirdo.”
I locked my screen and shoved my phone back into my bag, intent on paying attention to the lecture for the rest of the class, trying to get the niggling feeling to quiet itself.
Sometime later, during a break between classes, we sat at the coffee shop on campus. Cora handed me my coffee order as she sat down, clutching her extra-large coffee. She was long overdue for her daily dose, so she was making up for it.
”So, how are things going with the roommates?”
I scrunched my nose. ”Fine. Noah is taking the big protector thing too far, but honestly, it”s not like I couldn”t use the help.”
She nodded, taking a sip of her drink. ”What do you mean, too far?”
”There was no need for them to come to that party or to threaten Jacob. Noah and I got into a fight before I even got to the party. And before that, he basically dragged me away from Jacob when I was talking to him here, after class. It’s been a few weeks since then, and Jacob was a creep, but Noah just acts like he is intent on me following orders. I don’t know, maybe I’m overreacting, but it kinda annoys me,” I said, gesturing around the room.
Cora smiled. ”Okay, let”s put aside the fact that Jake is a creep because we didn’t know that at the time. But is there a possibility Noah’s jealous?”
I sat there, staring at her because it was a thought I’d had, but it didn’t make sense. Noah had a chance to go further yesterday, but he’d pulled away. We also kissed after the party, but then nothing after that. Maybe he was just getting caught up in the moment.
“I don’t think so, Cor. Noah is my stepbrother.”
“Jade, we are starting to circle. We already had this discussion. Just because he’s your stepbrother doesn’t mean he doesn’t want you.”
“Okay, I’ll admit, it feels like things between us are changing, but I don’t know if it’s just because we are forming a familial bond or if he wants something different from me.” I broke off from my explanation because Finn was now heading toward us. Looking down at my cell phone, I wondered why he was looking for me.
“Hey, Jade. I saw you through the window,” Finn said as he came to stand beside the table.
Ah. Made sense. I had to remind myself that he wasn”t the crazy one like Noah.
“Hey, Finn. Yeah, we came to get some caffeine,” I said, not quite sure what else to say.
He and I had never really had any big conversations. He wasn’t unfriendly; he just seemed quiet and was always in the background. Yesterday at breakfast, it was fun hearing about all their histories.
Cora stood, grabbing her coffee. “I’m gonna go. We’ll talk later.” She winked before walking away, leaving me alone with Finn.
“Can I sit?” he asked.
I smiled and nodded. He took the seat opposite mine and pulled his messenger bag from across his body. I wondered what his story was. He was a quiet person, but he didn’t have the personality of an introvert, so what could create that need in him not to make himself obvious? It was in stark contrast to his chosen path. I was an artist, and that was a discipline that required just me and my ideas to coexist. I didn’t need to be front and center. So why? I could only think that maybe he had been through some tough stuff, too.
The main reason I didn’t want to talk to people about what my ex had done, what I had been through, was because I didn’t think that anyone could really understand. There was something different about staring the darkness in the face and coming back on the other side, mostly intact. Only someone who had been through that could truly understand. The first couple of times I’d told someone my story, all I got was pity. I didn’t need someone to feel bad for me. It didn’t help. Plus, what help could they offer? I figured all I could do was ask.
“Hey, Finn?” I waited for him to look at me, and he nodded. “Why are you so quiet? It doesn’t make sense with the rest of your personality.” I wanted to smack my head in embarrassment, but I refrained because I was genuinely curious.
He smiled and leaned back against the wall of the booth. It always amazed me that Noah and his teammates did not intimidate me. Mostly their size should have made me a little wary, and Finn was bigger than them all, his bulky goalie gear making it more pronounced. Sitting there in regular jeans and a T-shirt, I could tell he had muscles.
”You asking for my life story, Jade?” he teased.
Giving him a small smile, I shrugged. ”I mean, I have no right to ask you because I”m not so free with my issues, but I was just curious if you maybe have your own . . .” I cut off, not knowing what word to use.
”Demons,” he finished, and yeah, it was an apt description.
I nodded.
He nodded his head. ”I have had my own demons to slay, sure. That”s how I knew whatever happened in your past has painted who you are today. You don”t trust easily.” He sighed and wiped his mouth with his fingers. ”I don”t like to talk about it because people always pity me, but I was raised in foster care. My bio parents were more addicted to a little white substance than being responsible, but they held it together, so I went home with them. After having my arm broken for the third time in just two years, they decided it wasn’t worth the risk with CPS, and so I was just abandoned in the hospital at the age of seven.”
”Shit.” I hissed. Sure, I felt bad for him momentarily, but he was here at an awesome school, played hockey, and, well, he was a sweet guy from what it seemed. He was better off, but I was sure it still stung.
”Yeah, and since I was older and obviously traumatized, no one wanted to adopt me. Foster care wasn”t always bad, but it wasn”t an ideal way to live.” He looked over my shoulder as if he was reliving some memory. He shook his head and looked down at his cup. ”Sometimes bad people fostered us. Sometimes the other kids were already messed up and wanted someone to torment, but sometimes it was fairly normal.” He shook his head and shifted his focus to his cup, taking a drink of his coffee, and for some reason, it mesmerized me watching his Adam”s apple bob. He smiled, and I automatically grinned back. ”I didn”t have a great experience until my sophomore year of high school. It was a struggle, but I kept it together to raise my grades and graduate high school with a good enough average for a scholarship and college. I also got into hockey in middle school, which helped.”
”Wow,” I said breathlessly. ”So maybe there”s hope for me yet.” My tone had an edge of teasing.
He surprised me by grabbing my hand with his large ones. ”Every day you wake up, there is hope. There were some nights I went to bed, praying that I wouldn”t wake up to continue the nightmare I”d been living, but if I had gotten what I thought I wanted, then I wouldn”t be living the dream I am now. You can”t lose hope because it”s what keeps you living,” he finished, his voice strong and full of sincerity.
”I know that. I got out of my nightmare, but I”m living in the aftermath. How long do I have to look over my shoulder? To continue living in survival mode? Do you know what I do every week? I pray to God that I don”t see my ex is going to be released early when I look at inmate records,” I said, my voice cracking, and I bit my lip to keep myself from crying. This was why I didn”t rely on people. Why I only needed myself, because trusting others just led to giving them another way to break you.
Finn”s amber-colored eyes filled with an emotion I wasn”t used to seeing people react with when they heard my worries: understanding and sympathy. He didn”t pity me; instead, he got it.
”What did he do, Jade?” His voice was hard, but I knew his anger wasn”t directed toward me.
I sucked in a sharp breath, my chest tightening at such an innocent and easy question. What didn”t he do to me was the better question.
I shook my head. ”I”m not trying to blow you off, Finn. Especially after what you just told me, but because of where we are, I can only tell you the basics. Plus, I think Noah is the one person who deserves to hear it before anyone else,” I told him, pleading for him to understand that I wasn”t excluding him.
He nodded, and I exhaled as I tried to shorten a very long, complicated story. Blowing out a breath again to gain my bearings, I steeled myself. “I met a guy when I was fifteen who seemed so different from all the other guys interested in me, and he should have been, seeing as how he was twenty-three.”
“Hold on,” Finn said, holding up his hands. “I don’t mean to interrupt you, but you didn’t find it weird that a man who was way over eighteen was interested in someone who was fifteen?”
“I was fifteen!” Giving him a small smile, I defended myself and let him know I understood how ridiculous it sounded. I hadn’t thought about it that way.
“Creepy or weird didn”t come to mind for me. I felt lucky that I could hold someone’s attention I thought was so far out of my league.” I sighed, feeling like I had aged years in the last few minutes. This was where it got harder to talk about, or even joke, so I needed to end it here.
I felt like Noah needed to hear this story and not from someone else other than me. He was so understanding on Saturday, but I knew he wanted to know. He was there while I was waking up screaming from my nightmares, and more often than not, he was the first one to make it to my room and hold me until I calmed down. It was weird how some of the things we had been through together had been forgotten.
“That is where I need to end for now. Like I said, this story is not one to tell here,” I said, looking around at everyone in the coffee shop. Trying to go for nonchalance, I rose calmly from my seat, really feeling anything but.
He got up from his seat too, and suddenly, I was being wrapped in his huge arms and pulled toward him. I returned the embrace, but I was stunned he was hugging me.
“I think telling Noah before everyone else is important, Jade, but if you need to talk to me about anything, you know you can, in confidence. I may be quiet, but it just means I’m a good listener,” he murmured.
I smiled, and when he pulled away to give me space, I looked up at him. “Thanks, Finn. I might just have to take you up on that offer.”
He grinned back at me, and I walked to my next class, feeling a little lighter.